20 - Filling the ranks

Summary

Britain and the USA, the largest holdouts from routine conscription in peacetime, adopted volunteering before going to war in 1939 and 1941 respectively. The USSR identified manpower as a strategic resource, and in 1941-42 tried to evacuate military-age males ahead of German advances. The Germans retained men who had suffered severe frostbite in Russia, stationing them on the Western Front, and formed security divisions from oldermen to police rear areas. Similarly, the US Army retained men for limited service who had useful skills even though they were not fit enough to recruit. Politicians were good at strong rhetoric, but weaker at taking action. For instance, US politicians talked of a policy of work or fight, but they never forced national service. No country found a permanent solution to manpower problems, not least because those problems were dynamic. Strategy, tactics and diplomacy played their roles, as did timing, politics and the needs of industry.